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Several factors appear to have stunted its acceptance. While it served as a discovery tool based on the music tastes of people you follow, and for music trending on Twitter as a whole, it offered very limited listening options from the allied Spotify, Rdio, and iTunes services. You had to be a subscriber to Spotify or Rdio to hear full songs, and iTunes only allowed brief previews. Plus, there were separate screens and logons to deal with.

It’s not clear yet what Twitter’s entire music strategy will be. But new Twitter-based music options may be limited, given that we haven’t seen any announcements of big licensing deals.

Twitter has reportedly been in discussions with San Francisco-based Beats Music, as well as with Berlin-based music sharing service SoundCloud. Users have been able to use the music-sharing service SoundCloud with Twitter Cards since 2012. There are apparently also efforts to obtain shortened music videos from two majors, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group.

On one hand, the micro-blogging service has entrenched itself as a major venue for discussing music, and it serves as a 21st century fan club for a wide variety of entertainers. Of the 10 most followed Twitter accounts, seven belong to musicians, and Twitter reports that “half of all users follow at least one musician.”

On the other hand, music services are complex entities, requiring the right combination of pricing, inventory, and ease-of-use. They are also fairly plentiful, so the key question is why a Twitter user — who undoubtedly already uses one or more music services — would want to add another.

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Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting. Simply find the public streams you find most compelling and follow the conversations. At the heart of Twitter are s... read more »